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A Two-Dimensional Tale
In the G.P. Brisk II, the New Splixsons were running around disorderly, playing around. Metarid raised his right hand, as though to pacify the loud children. Only at times like this, did he exhibit a mysterious presence, quickly silencing the children. Metarid spoke in a composed tone. Metarid: I have an important announcement to make! The chatter died down in the spaceship and you could feel everyone waiting to hear what was going to be said. However, what happened next wasn’t what anyone had expected. Metarid: We're going to the 2D universe! Marcus couldn’t understand it right away. Fred and Willie looked at each other, dumbfounded. Fred: What? Metarid: You see, a Galvan visits this two-dimensional universe at the turn of each millenium to introduce a new apostle to the idea of a third dimension in the hopes of eventually education its population. Willie: I'm just taking a wild guess here, but I'd definitely say you were chosen to go. Metarid: Exactly! Scitus personally granted me the privilage of doing so. Marcus: But how would you get into a 2D universe. Wouldn't your organs be ruined if you were flattened? Fred: How are the inhabitants of that place? Metarid: No, Marcus, I wouldn't be flattened. The transition between the two dimensions is completely safe and the necessary safety procedures have been taken just in case. Answering your question, Fred, the two-dimensional world is occupied by geometric figures, whereof women are simple line-segments, while men are polygons with various numbers of sides. Fred: Wow, I bet that place is full of rare aliens. Can't we come too? Metarid: I suppose I could bring one of you along. I hear that world can be quite dreary. Marcus: Sure, you guys run along and have fun while we're stuck here babysitting. Metarid: Thank you for understand, Marcus. Marcus: Hey! I was being sarcastic. The scene cuts to Fred and Metarid arriving on Galvan Prime. First Thinker Scitus is currently briefing them on the details of this crusade. Scitus: Once you are in their world, you will not be able to distinguish by sight the Triangles, Squares, and other figures, moving about as I have described them. Nothing was visible, nor could be visible, to us, except Straight Lines. Metarid showed eyes that understood everything, while Fred, on the contrary, stood still, toying with the endless questions he had. Scitus: And the necessity of this I will speedily demonstrate. Place a penny on the middle of one of your tables; and leaning over it, look down upon it. It will appear a circle. But now, drawing back to the edge of the table, gradually lower your eye, and you will find the penny becoming more and more oval to your view; and at last when you have placed your eye exactly on the edge of the table the penny will then have ceased to appear oval at all, and will have become, so far as you can see, a straight line. Trifling as it was, a part of Fred's questions did disappear with those words. Fred: Have you ever been to that two-dimensional world? You seem to know a lot about it. Scitus: I've only read about it in texts concerning Galvans' previous visits to that world. A word of caution to this tale; from the safety of our world, we were able to observe the leaders of the two-dimensional universe secretly acknowledging the existence of the three-dimensionals and prescribing the silencing of anyone found preaching the truth of the third dimension. After this proclamation was made, all witnesses would be massacred or imprisoned. Inside the 2D universe, It was the last day of the 1999th year of our era. The pattering of the rain had long ago announced nightfall; and a square was sitting in the company of his wife, musing on the events of the past and the prospects of the coming year, the coming century, the coming Millennium. Straightway he became conscious of a Presence in the room, and a chilling breath thrilled through my very being. Looking round in every direction he could see nothing; yet still he felt a Presence, and shivered as the cold whisper came again. He started up. Wife: What is the matter? What are you looking for? There is nothing. There was nothing; and he resumed his seat, again. What was their horror when they saw before us them figure! At the first glance it appeared to be a straight line, seen sideways; but a moment's observation showed him that the extremities passed into dimness too rapidly to represent a line; and he should have thought it an irregular polygon, only that it seemed to change its size in a manner impossible for any polygon or for any Figure of which he had had experience. In reality, it was Metarid and Fred who had just materialized into this world. Metarid: I have a message, dear Madam, to your husband, which I must not deliver in your presence; and, if you would suffer us to retire for a few minutes - - And so, the wife retired to her apartment. The square glanced at the half-hour glass. The last sands had fallen. The third Millennium had begun. As soon as the sound of tge departing Wife had died away, he began to approach the Stranger with the intention of taking a nearer view and of bidding him be seated: but his appearance struck the square dumb and motionless with astonishment. The thought flashed across him that he might have before him a burglar or cut- throat, some monstrous Irregular figure who had obtained admission somehow into the house, and was now preparing to stab him with his acute angle. Fred: Wow, I really can see nothing but straight lines. It's very uncomfortable. Metarid: Most illustrious Sir, excuse my awkwardness, which arises not from ignorance of the usages of polite society, but from a little surprise and nervousness, consequent on this somewhat unexpected visit. And I beseech you to reveal my indiscretion to no one, and especially not to your Wife. Square: Might I know whence you came? Metarid: From the space off this world. Square: Are you already in Space, you and your humble servant, even at this moment? Fred: Servant? Metarid: Pooh! what do you know of Space? Define Space. Square: Space is height and breadth indefinitely prolonged. Metarid: Exactly: you see you do not even know what Space is. You think it is of Two Dimensions only; but I have come to announce to you a Third - height, breadth, and length. Square: We also speak of length and height, or breadth and thickness, thus denoting Two Dimensions by four names. Stranger. Metarid: But I mean not only three names, but Three Dimensions. Square: Would you indicate or explain to me in what direction is the Third Dimension, unknown to me? Metarid: I came from it. It is up above and down below. Square: You means seemingly that it is Northward and Southward. Metarid: I mean nothing of the kind. I mean a direction in which you cannot look, because you have no eye in your side. Square: Pardon me, my Lord, a moment's inspection will convince your Lordship that I have a perfect luminary at the juncture of two of my sides. Metarid: Yes: but in order to see into Space you ought to have an eye, not on your Perimeter, but on your side, that is, on what you would probably call your inside; but we in the third dimension should call it your side. Square: An eye in my inside! An eye in my stomach! Metarid: I tell you that I come from Space, or, since you will not understand what Space means, from the Land of Three Dimensions whence I but lately looked down upon your Plane which you call Space forsooth. From that position of advantage I discerned all that you speak of as solid, your houses, your churches, your very chests and safes, yes even your insides and stomachs, all lying open and exposed to my view. Square: Such assertions are easily made. Metarid: But not easily proved, you mean. But I mean to prove mine. When I descended here, I saw your four sons, the Pentagons, each in his apartment, and your two Grandsons the Hexagons; I saw your youngest Hexagon remain a while with you and then retire to his room, leaving you and your Wife alone. I saw your Isosceles servants, three in number, in the kitchen at supper, and the little Page in the scullery. Then I came here, and how do you think I came? Square: Through the roof, I suppose. Metarid: Not so. Your roof, as you know very well, has been recently repaired, and has no aperture by which even a straight line could penetrate. I tell you I come from Space. Are you not convinced by what I have told you of your children and household? Square: You must be aware that such facts touching the belongings of his humble servant might be easily ascertained by any one in the neighbourhood possessing your ample means of obtaining information. And might I ask why your body is not, as you say, three-dimensional? Metarid: Your country of Two Dimensions is not spacious enough to represent me, a being of Three, but can only exhibit a slice or section of me. Square: Monster, no more will I endure thy mockeries. Either you or I must perish. You are not welcome here on Abbott. And saying these words he precipitated himself upon him. He brought his hardest right angle into violent collision with the strangers, pressing on them with a force sufficient to have destroyed any ordinary Figure. Fred transforms in a flash of green light that temporarily blinds everyone. His appearance is that of a mime. Psystrike waves his hands and a woundrous clear glass screen is put up to suppress the Square's attack. The Square could feel them slowly and unarrestably slipping from his contact Psystrike reverts. Fred: I think we should be leaving now. Metarid: Yes, I think so too. Fred and Metarid immediately leave the household. Metarid: Why will he refuse to listen to reason? I had hoped to find in him - as being a man of sense and an accomplished mathematician - a fit apostle for the Gospel of the Three Dimensions. Fred: And did he call this world Abbott? Metarid: Yes. Fred: I guess I should have payed more attention in geometry class. Metarid looked, and afar off he saw an immense Polygonal structure, in which he recognized the General Assembly Hall of the States of , surrounded by dense lines of Pentagonal buildings at right angles to each other, which he knew to be streets; and he perceived that he was approaching the great Metropolis. Fred: Life's pretty boring here. Nothing ever happens. Metarid: Aesthetically and artistically, very dull indeed. How can it be otherwise, when all one's prospect, all one's landscapes, historical pieces, portraits, flowers, still life, are nothing but a single line, with no varieties except degrees of brightness and obscurity? Fred: Hey, if we don't find someone suitable, what do we do then? Metarid: I don't know. A figure, out of nowhere, approaches them. From their point of vue, he was just a straight line, but he was in reality an irregular polygon dragging behind his regular and respectable vertex, a parallelogram of twelve or thirteen inches in diagonal. Chromatistes: Hello strangers. My name is Chromatistes. I overheard your conversation just now, and allow me to say that it was not always like this. Colour threw a transient splendour over the lives of our lives not long ago. Pantocyclus, the one who discovered the art of painting, wherever he went, at once excited attention, and attracted respect. The fashion spread like wildfire. Before a week was over, every Square and Triangle in the district had copied the example of Pantocyclus. Metarid: Let me guess, your king didn't take this too well. Chromatistes: True. Our Chief Circle arose to find himself hissed and hooted by a hundred and twenty thousand Isosceles, and Pantocyclus found himself encompassed with guards and thrown into jail. Colour is now non-existent. The art of making it is known to only one living person, the Chief Circle for the time being. Fred: Wow, things are pretty bad. Chromatistes: Yes, it truly is a dire situation. Metarid: Well, you know how sometimes I have really brilliant ideas? Fred: Yes? Metarid: I'm having on right now. Fred, you could become the Gospel of the Three Dimensions. Fred: How? Metarid: You have the power to save this world. Fred: I do? Metarid: Ahaha! I've got it! Metarid approaches Fred, and tampers with the Novatrix, entering a code of some sort. The Novatrix circles and then reveals a hole which shoots out a yellow ray at Chromatistes. Novatrix: Uncatalogued DNA acquired. Available on Playlist 5. Fred promptly slams the Novatrix faceplate. Transformation sequence: his body becomes a Picasso-esque blocky structure. His begins to break down and fall apart and is compressed into a thin line. When it expands, his body is made out of several asymmetrical, inter-connected, polygonal body parts. Chromatistes: How did he do that?! I've never seen anything like it. A being with the ability to transform into a Tesseran? Metarid: Apparently, Tesserans have something analogous to DNA. Pixagonal: Oh well. Under the circumstances, this one looks pretty good! I'm going to call him, what say... PIXAGONAL! It was now morning, the first hour of the first day of the two thousandth year of our era. Acting, as was their wont, in strict accordance with precedent, the highest Circles of the realm were meeting in solemn conclave, as they had met on the first hour of the first day of the year 1000, and also on the first hour of the first day of the year 0. Pixagonal and Metarid enter the council room. The minutes of the previous meetings were now read by one perfectly Symmetrical Square, and the Chief Clerk of the High Council. It was found recorded on each occasion that: "It has been unanimously resolved by the Grand Council that on the first day of each millenary, special injunctions be sent to the Prefects in the several districts of Abbott, to make strict search for misguided persons pretending to have received revelations from other worlds, to scourge and imprison them." Metarid: You hear your fate. Death or imprisonment awaits the Apostle of the Gospel of Three Dimensions. Pixagonal: Let me do all the talking here. Delicate situations such as these require a certain procedural acumen, which I happen to be well-versed. Pixagonal leaped with great dexterity right in the midst of the ring of Counsellors. Pixagonal: I come to proclaim that there is a land of Three Dimensions. He could see many of the younger Counsellors start back in manifest horror. Then the President addressed the Junior Circles of the council. President: My Lords, there is not the slightest need for surprise; the secret archives, to which I alone have access, tell me that a similar occurrence happened on the last two millennial commencements. You will, of course, say nothing of these trifles outside the Cabinet. Raising his voice, he now summoned the guards. President: Arrest the policemen; gag them. You know your duty. After he had consigned to their fate the wretched policemen - ill-fated and unwilling witnesses of a State-secret which they were not to be permitted to reveal, he again addressed the Counsellors. President: My Lords, the business of the Council being concluded, I have only to wish you a happy New Year. When Metarid saw Pixagonal led away to imprisonment, he attempted to leap down into the Council Chamber, desiring to intercede on his behalf. Pixagonal advanced towards the Chief Circle (President) with a menacing cry as if to pierce me through the diameter; and in that same moment there arose from myriads of his subjects a multitudinous war-cry, increasing in vehemence till it rivalled the roar of an army of a hundred thousand Isosceles, and the artillery of a thousand Pentagons. Spell-bound and motionless, the Chief Circle could neither speak nor move to avert the impending destruction; and still the noise grew louder, and Pixagonal came closer, when Metarid and Pixagonal awoke to find Scitus and his Galvan assistants recalling them to the realities of their third dimension. Pixagonal reverted back to normal. Fred: Why'd you bring us back? I was just getting started. Scitus: That is precisely why I brought you back! It was a catastrophe! Metarid: The Tesserans' minds are confined to a limited Dimensionality and refuse the existence of a Land of Three Dimensions. Fred: We couldn't find someone suitable to spread the word of a third dimension, so I tried to do it myself. I became the apostle. Metarid: You were about to be thrown in jail, and you attacked the Chief Circle. Fred: He started it. Scitus: Anyway, it seems that the two-dimensionals are not ready yet. Perhaps in the coming milleniums. Metarid: We gained nothing from this visit. Fred: What are you talking about? I got an awesome new alien from the second dimension. Metarid: Yes, I will be able to conduct experiments to study the Tesserans' anatomy and physiology. Fred: Oh no, you don't! In the end, the visit to the two-dimensional universe appeared no better than the offspring of a diseased imagination, or the baseless fabric of a dream.